By The Detroit Free Press Editorial Board

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The state of Michigan has way too many school districts, and many are experiencing financial hardships as a result. / Kimberly P. Mitchell/Detroit Free Press

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So much to do, so little time.

When the Michigan Legislature’s fall term begins in earnest this week, lawmakers will be confronted with pressing challenges from every aspect of public life (some, it’s worth noting, outstanding from the last term). So what’s a busy Legislature to do?

We’ve put together a list of policy objectives we’d like to see lawmakers tackle during this session. Some, like the status of the adoption of the Common Core standards, should be handled posthaste — before the start of the new fiscal year. Others, such as securing funding for Michigan roads, are important long-term needs that must be addressed in the short term. Michigan is at a crossroads: We’ve experienced some economic recovery, but without re-envisioning some of the state’s key services and policies, our recovery won’t last. It’s not enough to put out fires — the Legislature must think proactively, and find ways to ensure that the state doesn’t lose ground.

School district consolidation

Fifty and counting.

That’s how many Michigan school districts face deficits — a record number and a clear sign that the state needs school finance reform.

A good place to start is with the sheer number of school districts, more than 500 in a state that has 1.5 million students and whose school population has declined nearly 9% in the last decade.

Fewer districts would mean less overhead and more money to spend in classrooms. It’s an idea whose time is ripe, and is in search of a champion.

State Superintendent Mike Flanagan suggested last spring that Michigan could take a giant step toward eliminating overhead costs with a hybrid consolidation plan. Intermediate School Districts would assume responsibility for services like transportation and food. Local school districts would manage student achievement issues.

It’s a leap toward sanity, and it could get a big push from the Legislature this fall.

Flanagan is planning to raise the proposal again this week with the joint legislative committee on K-12 appropriations, and he’ll ask lawmakers to fund pilots across the state. The ask will be around $5 million, according to a spokesperson from the Department of Education. That ought to be achievable.

Gov. Rick Snyder is already incentivizing school district consolidations, and some districts have begun to respond.

A statewide program to consolidate services would be a nice complement, and bring Michigan closer to the day when school district deficits don’t threaten stability for so many children.

Common Core

Speaking of schools ...

Michigan educators thought the state’s path was set back in 2010, when the state Board of Education approved adoption of the Common Core educational standards; school districts were on track to switch over to the core standards in the 2014 school year. But earlier this year, the plan was derailed by a group of lawmakers led by Rep. Tom McMillin, R-Rochester Hills. McMillin’s effort to strip funding for implementation of the standards from the upcoming fiscal year’s budget was successful, and schools have been left in limbo.

The standards are broad educational achievement goals, not curricula, but districts had begun to shift lesson plans to address the areas emphasized by the core standards, and the state was set to adopt the Smarter Balanced test, which is aligned to the core standards, in the 2014 school year.

A legislative subcommittee has spent the summer holding hearings on the core standards — never mind that the state Board of Education held a lengthy public comment period back in 2010. State Rep. Tim Kelly, R-Saginaw Township., says he expects to deliver a recommendation to the Legislature in a week to 10 days. Most subcommittee members, he said, are cautious, but amenable to moving forward.

But they’re cutting it awfully close. The school year has already begun, and the Oct. 1 onset of the next fiscal year is fast approaching.

Why is this so important? For starters, implementation allowed Michigan to obtain a waiver from complying with some parts of the federal No Child Left Behind law.

Business groups and education advocates all support the core standards, which set clear, rigorous and consistent standards for student achievement nationwide — a departure from the current patchwork of state-set standards. Opposition to the standards seems to center around the fear that they’re a backdoor attempt to a federal “takeover” of education, but adoption of the standards isn’t mandatory (though the federal government has incentivized adoption of the standards, developed by the National Governors Association, with Race to the Top grant funding.) Forty-five states have adopted the standards. One of the goals of setting consistent national standards is to ensure that U.S. students can compete globally; if Michigan doesn’t get on board, global competition will be the least of our worries.

Roads

Nothing reveals the Republican-controlled Legislature’s fear of governing more glaringly than its refusal to confront Michigan’s crumbling roads and bridges.

In his State of the State address last February, the governor explained the cost of deferred road maintenance in terms even his party’s most fiscally conservative lawmakers could understand:

“Do you want to get oil changes on a regular basis?” Snyder asked. “Or do you wait to do an engine rebuild?”

Snyder argues persuasively that the current formula of gasoline tax revenue and matching federal funds falls more than $1 billion-a-year short of what’s needed to bring Michigan’s roads and bridges — currently ranked among the nation’s worst — up to snuff over the next 10 years. Continued neglect will push the price tag for deferred maintenance to $25 billion by 2024.

Buoyed by an unexpected surplus in income tax revenues, state lawmakers earmarked an unprecedented $350 million in general revenue funds for road repair in the budget they approved last spring. But they’ve made no progress toward a long-term road-funding solution, notwithstanding evidence that Michigan motorists are paying annual car repair bills an average of $81 higher than their counterparts in four surrounding states.

Enough idling. If lawmakers are too scared to confront a crisis apparent to every driver in Michigan, they should at least put some proposal for reversing the deterioration of the state’s roads before voters in 2014. The longer Republican legislative leaders resist their governor’s fiscally responsible proposal to boost road funding, the more outrageous the costs that they’ll impose on the next generation of Michigan motorists.

Civil rights

Protecting Michiganders from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation is a step that’s long overdue, and some Lansing lawmakers say they anticipate taking up the topic during this session.

State Sen. Rebekah Warren, D-Ann Arbor, has twice introduced bills aimed at including sexual orientation in the groups of people protected in Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act, but neither attempt has been successful. She has said that she expects to make another attempt during this session.

A report by the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, issued in January, details the harm done to LGBT Michiganders (the current status of the law means LGBT residents can be fired, evicted or otherwise discriminated against because of sexual orientation) — but also addresses how the state’s relative unfriendliness to the LGBT community affects Michigan’s ability to attract and retain residents.

State Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, a Monroe Republican, has said he anticipates a discussion on Elliott-Larsen this fall. But how far will the discussion go? Democrats and moderate Republicans (who have received last year’s message that the party must become more inclusive) will have an uphill battle against the Legislature’s social conservatives.

The inclusion of protection to LGBT Michiganders has languished, legislatively, for years. It’s time to take action.

What do you think the Legislature should take up as it resumes session this week? Post your suggestion in the comments section or e-mail them to opinion@freepress.com and we may publish them.